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Rwanda Preparation Update

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us and offering financial support for our trip! I have gotten several requests for updates...so here we go!

• Clay and I are officially vaccinated! Yes, the rumors are true. The injections made me woozy and I was forced to lie on the floor in the nurse's office with my feet elevated while she siphoned Coke down my throat. Awesome.
  
  
• We met as a whole team for the first time on August 11. It was a great time of getting to know the others going, and hearing their hearts for Rwanda/Africa/the orphan/missions. God has assembled an incredible team for this trip, and I am looking forward to the relationships that will be cultivated through this experience.
  
  
• God has blessed us through many of you with nearly $2000 in funds! Our current balance is approximately $3000. If you feel led to help join our team of Senders by supporting us financially or in prayer, please email/call/Facebook message me or Clay and we'll get you the info. We praise God for His provision thus far, and trust Him as He continues to make a way for us to serve Him abroad.

Again, we covet your prayers in this time as we prepare for this ministry. We are excited to see how God uses us in the lives of the Rwandans, and how God transforms us in the process. To God be the glory!



Africa New Life Ministries logo and photo from www.africanewlife.org

We're going to RWANDA!

More details to come soon. But the short of is we are going on a trip to Rwanda over the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm looking forward to being back in Africa, serving alongside my husband, and spending time with friends and families from Regents outside of school.

Mulungu ni wambweno (God is good! - that Nyanga...I guess I'll need to learn some Kinyarwanda...they are from the Bantu family, but not closely related!)

http://africanewlife.org/

Called

Seriously praying about Africa.

1. Listen to the sermon from 5/16 here ---> Radical Missiology

2. Check out the 100 People Network here ---> 100 People Network

So Great a Cloud of Witnesses

I love the Book of Hebrews. We are wrapping it up in Bible tomorrow, but the last few weeks have been some of the best Bible discussions we've had all year.

In case you have never been introduced to, or it's just been a while since you've spent some time with them, I'd like to encourage you to spend some time getting to know the folks in Hebrews 11. Go ahead and follow through with chapter 12.

Thank you God that my pleasing you is not dependent on my impossible perfection. Thank you for promising to increase my faith if I will only ask. Thank you for giving me just the measure of faith and grace needed to endure through each new circumstance. Thank you for loving me enough to discipline me - even though discipline is not fun, I know it is to make me look more like Christ.

NASA 2010

How is it possible that NASA is over already? The trip was amazing, and I am so thankful for the community I work with. We had a few minor bumps along the way (docents who knew nothing about anything, a bus driver that was as nice as could be but a brick shy of a load, and rough winds that canceled our harbor tour), but in all the Lord blessed us with a great week with our kids and some of their parents.

I love this trip because it gives us all a chance to develop relationships with families we don't work with on a regular basis. We also get to interact with our kids on a different level than everyday classroom time allows. I really enjoyed all of the moments that I had with my kids - especially one-on-one time. I wish I wasn't such a weenie and had ridden Pharaoh's Fury with my class...sorry boys, but I just can't do it!

One of my favorite moments this whole school year happened last night around 9:30. My team and I were sitting in the lounge of the hotel sharing stories from the day (laughing so deliriously at some of Kyle's impersonations we were crying) when one of my kids came over. He asked something about ice cream that I misinterpreted as him asking for permission to get ice cream. I gave the standard answer (that if I said once I said 100 times on this trip) "Ask your chaperone." That's when J clarified...no, he wasn't asking permission for ice cream. He had already bought a pint and wanted to know if I wanted any. Precious. I went over to the breakfast bar and visited with him as he scooped me some bites into a bowl. After he scooped my portion, he asked if Brenda wanted some. And went on down the line until all the teachers (6 total) had been offered a bowl. He then took what little was left in the pint and went on his way to bed.

My patience tends to run thin too quickly sometimes, and I really don't really deserve little moments like that. But maybe that's exactly why God gives them to me. To remind me to slow down and and recognize the sweetness He has surrounded me with.

And in other news I am SO happy to be home with my husband!

Count your blessings; Name them one by one

I really don't think I can manage to count all of my blessings. When I do actively name them off I find myself in an increasingly good mood. Naming the blessings inevitably leads to memories and warm-fuzzy thoughts about the blessings (who are mostly people).

So seriously. You may think it's cheesy, but today I challenge you to count your blessings. A brief look at my list may help you get started (these are just the broad categories...when I'm counting I list every person individually)...

• My relationship with Jesus (if you don't know Him, I'd love to introduce you)
• My husband (see photo)
• Our family
• Our friends
• My job
• Our church family
• Our home
• Clay's job
• Living in Austin
• The Families who share their children with me
• The Children themselves
• My Education
• TEXAS
• My Health
• Our animals
• Our cars are both paid for
• Oh the list goes on!!!

Malaria

The last time I was in Lusaka I went to a bookstore at Manda Hill. I picked up a book written by a German guy back in the '30s and I was taken with a quote on the back. The gist of it was Africa is like malaria - it gets in your blood and you are forever infected by the land and her people.

To continue the simile, this week I had a relapse. I can't get Africa off my mind or out of my heart. I spent time poring over blogs of friends of friends who are there, reading up on missions organizations that work specifically in sub-Saharan Africa, talking to a friend who is preparing to head to Lusaka long-term, and thinking about how/when I will get back.

I don't know what the Lord's plans are. I have learned not to try to out-think Him, or guess at what His will is. He will reveal His perfect plan, in His perfect time. I am praying that I will be attentive to His direction.

Until then....

Kids crowding outside the bus in George Compound, Lusaka, Zambia

George Compound, Lusaka, Zambia

In Mtendere, Lusaka, Zambia with my Jonas and his sister at their school (Jesus Army)

On the road in Lusaka

Grocery Mtendere/Kalingalinga areas of Lusaka

If God is Love, and we are God's children...

Last week I spoke at the Valentine's chapel for the 1st-2nd graders. I didn't feel inspired to talk about one of the many legends of St. Valentine, and I wasn't particularly thrilled with all I read about the fact that it is yet another Roman holiday that was "Christianized". Week before last, God began planting seeds of what He wanted today's focus to be. Sometime last spring I really became taken with the description of LOVE in 1 Corinthians 13. I think this passage is so familiar that we have become desensitized to its message, but there is some pretty amazing stuff in it. Setting aside the fact that if you read it in context, it is actually referring to how you use your gifts, today I just want to focus on the definition of love. I did not move this into essay form...it's just the notes I wrote for chapel.

Here we go.

1 John 4:7-8

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

There is a fun holiday coming up next week. I bet you can all tell me what it is. Valentine’s Day is a day of celebrating friends and family and eating lots of chocolate. It is a holiday to celebrate love. But I don’t want to talk today about Valentine’s has to say about love. The Bible has a lot to say about Love, and one of the most important things it says to me is found in 1 John 4:7-8. Let’s work backwards in these verses to see exactly what they say about love, and what they teach us about our part in love.

Verse 8 tells us that God is love. Verse 7 tells us that everyone who loves is born of God…that means we are His children. Think about your parents. Each of us has characteristics or traits from our parents. I get my brown curly hair from my mom, and my brown eyes from my dad. We don’t just have physical traits from our parents, but also personality traits. I have my dad’s sense of humor, and my mom’s aversion to conflict.

So if we are God’s children, that means we are going to have characteristics of God. The Bible tells us lots of ways that God made man in His likeness, but today we are focusing on the characteristics of love. If we are God’s children, then we must love each other and others.

But what does this really look like? What does it mean to have God’s characteristics of love? Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. I know you all know it, but we are going to read through it a special way today.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Now, what did we learn about love and God from 1 John 4? That’s right! We learned that God IS love. So let’s reread these verses and replace God’s name everywhere we see love:

GOD is patient, GOD is kind. GOD does not envy, GOD does not boast, GOD is not proud. GOD is not rude, GOD is not self-seeking, GOD is not easily angered, GOD keeps no record of wrongs. GOD does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. GOD always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Ok, so we are starting to get a pretty good idea of what it looks like to be God’s children, right? If we are God’s children then we are going to exhibit or show these characteristics. Let’s look at a few of them a little more closely.

Does anyone know what it means to be patient? It means to go through troubles calmly and think carefully before making decisions. When we have patience with others we are usually showing respect.

What about the 2nd characteristic listed? I know all of you in here are kind to your friends and your family. But how often do you go out of your way to be kind to someone you don’t know, or maybe someone who you may not be friends with?

Let’s look at what it means to be proud, self-seeking, and boastful. All of those things go together…and the Bible tells us that LOVE and therefore GOD are none of these things. So we should try to avoid them too. When we are proud, self-seeking or boastful it basically means that we think more of ourselves than of others and even of God. We can forget that God gave us the talents and abilities to do things, and ignore people in our lives who help us. To be proud and boastful means we want all the attention on us and to get credit for everything. The Bible tells us that instead of focusing on ourselves, we should consider others more important than ourselves, and that we should remember that everything comes from God…not anything we have done.

We just talked about a lot of characteristics or traits of God’s love. I’m going to tell you a short story and I want you to see what characteristics you hear either right or wrong:

Mrs. Smith’s class was in the middle of practicing their math drills. They were all going really fast around the room, until she got to Timmy. Timmy had a hard time in math and it took him a long time to answer. The class waited a few seconds and when Timmy didn’t answer, Denise started waving her hand in the air saying “Ooo ooo ooo!!” She knew the answer and wanted Mrs. Smith to give her a chance to show everyone that she was smarter than Timmy.

In that story was Denise showing Timmy patience? Do you think she was being self-seeking and boastful wanting to show the whole class that she knew the answer and Timmy didn’t?

The next 2 characteristics are 2 of the reasons I am most thankful to God and why I love him so much. 1 Corinthians says love (or GOD) doesn’t get mad easily and doesn’t keep score. I know sometimes I get mad about little things, but this scripture tells me that I should be patient and stay calm. It also tells me that I should forgive others and not hold things they have done to me against them. When people are mean to us or say hurtful things it is often hard to forget. But God wants us to have love instead of bitter feelings towards each other.

We don’t have time today to talk about the remaining characteristics of Love and God that Paul writes about in 1 Corinthians. But I hope you’ll spend time with your teachers and your parents talking about ways you can show Love like God has shown us love.